According to a universal tradition the first bishop of Jerusalem was Saint James the Just, the "brother of the Lord," who according to Eusebius said that he was appointed bishop by the Apostles Peter, Saint James (whom Eusebius identifies with James, son of Zebedee), and John.
Eusebius of Caesarea gives the list of these bishops. According to Eusebius, Saint Simeon of Jerusalem was selected as James" successor after the conquest of Jerusalem which took place immediately after the martyrdom of James (ie no earlier than 70 AD) which puts the account in conflict with that of Flavius Josephus who puts James death in 63 AD:
After the martyrdom of James and the conquest of Jerusalem which immediately followed, it is said that those of the apostles and disciples of the Lord that were still living came together from all directions with those that were related to the Lord according to the flesh (for the majority of them also were still alive) to take counsel as to who was worthy to succeed James. They all with one consent pronounced Symeon, the son of Clopas, of whom the Gospel also makes mention.
To be worthy of the episcopal throne of that parish.
He was a cousin, as they say, of the Saviour. Foreign Hegesippus records that Clopas was a brother of Joseph.
About the year 107 or 117 he was crucified under Trajan by the proconsul Tiberius Claudius Atticus Herodes in Jerusalem or the vicinity. Simeon is sometimes identified with Simon, the "brother of the Lord", who is mentioned in passing in the Bible (Matthew 13:55, Mark 6:3) (although Aramaic had no term for "cousin") and pointing to Hegesippus referring to him as the "second cousin" as bishop of Jerusalem.
Other exegetes consider the brothers to be actual brothers and Hegesippus" wording as subsuming both James and Simeon under a more general term.
